Colors of Memory, Part 2

Riley didn’t intend to cry in public. She never did. But the moment Chloe spotted her—alone, hunched over on the lowest ledge of the fountain, arms folded across her knees, hair a red shield—she knew what was happening. No one sat like that to watch koi.

Chloe almost turned away, but the sound hit her: a soft, ugly, animal noise, half-caught in Riley’s throat. Chloe’s steps slowed. She hovered by the ficus, fingers worrying the hem of her cardigan, torn between retreat and intrusion. In the end, she did neither. She just… waited.

The garden’s peace seemed cruel in the moment—the hush of the wind through glass, the drone of the pumps, the distant echo of laughter from the main lobby. Chloe remembered how it felt, once, to be overwhelmed by the world’s ordinary beauty when her own life was in pieces. She remembered how it felt to want to disappear, but to be so bad at hiding that even a stranger could see through you.

Riley’s body trembled so hard it looked like her bones might rattle out of their joints, but she made no bid to hide the evidence—didn’t swipe at her face, didn’t square her shoulders, didn’t even try to turn away. She just hunched over, knuckles white where they gripped her knees, and kept her face buried behind the ragged shield of her hair. Each breath was a struggle—wet, uneven, harsh as static. For a full minute, she seemed to disappear into herself, and only the glint of light on the thing she clutched in her hand suggested that she remained tethered to the world at all.

Chloe approached carefully, not so much walking as calculating the exact weight of each step. She kept her hands visible, palms open, and when she reached the fountain ledge, she eased down to the ground, landing with a deliberate distance between them—close enough to be felt, far enough that Riley could pretend she was alone, if that was what she needed.

Riley gave no sign she’d noticed. Her grip on the necklace—Chloe could see now it was silver, with a tiny sphere in a filigree cage—tightened until the chain cut into her palm. Chloe recognized the object from old Catholic gift shops, sometimes called an angel’s caller, sometimes a harmony ball. She didn’t know what it meant to Riley, but she knew what it was used for, and the intensity of her hold on it made Chloe's heart ache.

Time stilled. The only motion was the soft ripple of water behind them and the unhurried drift of koi in the shallow pond. The colors of the garden bent around Riley’s grief, as if sunlight itself hesitated to touch her. Chloe listened to the sound of it—grief had a sound, she learned the hard way, and it was not always the explosive wail of drama but sometimes just the quiet, insistent leak of something broken refusing to heal.

When Riley spoke, it was a slow uncoiling, the words emerging in broken increments, each one a wound that bled as it opened.

“I named him John, after his Dad. He was—” She swallowed hard, then **** the next part out as if it had a weight she did not want to bear. “He was only a day old.”

The words seemed to hover, as if they refused to settle on the air. Chloe’s own breath caught. She had braced herself for something hard, but even so, there was no protection from it. She could feel tears pooling up in her eyes.

Riley’s face was unreadable, still hidden, but her jaw clenched and a fresh sheet of tears soaked the backs of her hands. She tried to speak again and failed, the only sound a dry, strangled gasp.

Chloe didn’t speak, didn’t shift, didn’t so much as sigh. This had never been her specialty, but she knew enough not to contaminate Riley’s pain with her own pity or, worse, empty comfort. She just waited, letting the space fill up with whatever truth Riley needed to drag out of herself.

A long minute later, Riley found her voice again. “Five months after John died. Less than half a year. I had a husband and a son and then nothing.”

The word nothing landed like a verdict. Chloe wanted to say she was sorry, but that was a lie, because sorry was a word for when you forgot someone’s birthday or broke a plate, not when the world snatched your entire family away and left you in the ruins. So she said nothing.

Riley’s fingers twisted the chain, over and over, so tight Chloe wondered if she’d draw blood. “I thought it would help, being here. Getting away. It doesn’t. It just makes me feel like I’m suffocating in other people’s laughter.”

The bitter honesty of it almost made Chloe flinch. She remembered days when every smile in the world was a slap, when the sound of joy was the most wounding thing imaginable. She let that memory anchor her to the moment.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Chloe said, as gently as she could, hoping Riley would hear the lack of pressure in it.

But Riley barked a short, bitter laugh, the kind that hurt more than it healed. “I want to. I want to scream it in their faces. That they shouldn’t be so happy. That they don’t know what it’s like to lose everything, overnight.”

Chloe nodded. She didn’t offer understanding she hadn’t earned. Instead, after a beat, she said, “I don’t know. But I know how it feels to not want the world to keep spinning.”

That got Riley’s attention. She didn’t look up, but she shifted, just enough to make it clear she was listening.

“Were you always this nice?” Riley asked, her voice a raw whisper. It wasn’t a compliment, more an accusation.

Chloe shook her head. “No. But I learned that sometimes people don’t want fixing. Sometimes they just need someone to stay.”

Riley shut her eyes tight, lips trembling, and for a moment Chloe thought she might shatter outright. Instead, Riley drew a ragged breath and exhaled slow, like she was dragging the poison out with it.

“I don’t even want to be comforted,” Riley said. “I want to be angry. I want someone to blame.”

Chloe let the silence stand. She’d learned a thing or two about anger, how it was easier than grief but never quite satisfying. She’d also learned that letting someone sit in their anger, without running from it or smothering it, was sometimes the kindest thing you could do.

Riley pressed the necklace flat to her chest, then finally turned her head, just a fraction, to look at Chloe. Her eyes were red, the lids puffy, but her gaze was sharp and appraising.

“You’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you?” she asked, a flare of suspicion buried in the question.

Chloe gave her the only answer that would work. “Not unless you want me to.”

Riley nodded, then wiped her cheek with her wrist. “Good. Because if one more person tries to make this a teaching moment, I swear I’ll set their hair on fire.”

A trace of a smile, so faint Chloe almost missed it. She smiled back, not big, just enough to show she’d noticed.

They sat together for a long time, neither speaking, the sun inching higher and the shadows shifting around them. Above, a pair of doves landed on the bamboo rail, oblivious to the sorrow below. Chloe watched as one preened the other, awkward and insistent, and she wondered if Riley saw the same thing—how the world kept moving, indifferent, but sometimes offered a little grace anyway.

Riley’s breathing slowed. Her hands unclenched. She didn’t say thank you, and Chloe didn’t need her to. They just shared the bench, and the hurt, and let the day move forward one breath at a time.

When Riley finally rose, she did so without apology or drama. She pulled her hair back in its elastic, wiped her eyes, and squared her shoulders. The necklace disappeared back under her shirt. She nodded once, curt, and then strode off toward the path, not looking back.

Chloe watched Riley go, then sat in the garden another few minutes, feeling the ache in her own chest lessen by degrees. She wondered if this counted as progress, or just a brief truce between old wounds.

Either way, she promised herself she wouldn’t mention it to anyone. Riley deserved at least that much dignity.

She gathered herself and stood, dusting off her hands, and turned back toward the hotel—toward the people and the noise and, eventually, the comfort of the familiar. It was enough, for now.

When Riley encountered Andy later that afternoon—by the big glass doors near the library—her first reaction was shame, then panic, then a white-hot anger that burned through both.

He must have seen the red in her eyes, the shine on her cheeks, the way her mouth still trembled. He gave her a wide berth, hands in his pockets, eyes downcast as if he could unsee the evidence.

Riley hated him for that. Hated him for seeing her, for knowing her grief, for being another unwanted witness.

She stopped him with a single word: “Don’t.”

He looked up, startled.

“Don’t pity me,” she said. “Don’t try to fix me. Don’t talk about Laura, or John, or anything you think you understand.”

Andy nodded, slow and careful, like he was moving around a wild animal.

“I’m not going to say I know what you’re feeling,” he offered, voice level. “But if you want to yell at someone, or blame someone, I’ll stand here and take it.”

Riley clenched her jaw. She wanted to, desperately. But the words caught in her throat, tangled with the sobs she’d already spent.

Instead, she said, “Just leave me alone.”

Andy took the message. He stepped back, gave her space, and let her vanish up the hall.

Riley walked until her legs burned. She promised herself she would never let anyone see her break again, not for as long as she could help it.

If she was going to survive this place, she needed to be the toughest person in the room.

Even if it meant being alone, even if it meant building the walls higher and higher, until no one could reach her, ever again.

Emi found Andy in the atrium, just as the day’s color was tipping toward evening. Her cheeks were flushed, her breathing fast, like she’d jogged the length of the hotel to find him—and maybe she had. In her arms, a bundle of scarves, a sketchbook, and a slim glass bottle with three inches of opaque blue liquid.

“Come with me,” she said, and grabbed his hand before he could ask a question.

They navigated the maze of public corridors, past the hush of the library and the spa’s steamy side door, until they reached the big glass wall at the edge of the Annex. Here, Andy noticed, the staff had placed a single, unmarked black door in the frosted glass—something that hadn’t been there, even this morning. A gold leaf plaque beside the handle read: Forest of Beginnings. The name sounded familiar.

Emi paused, chest rising and falling, the anticipation in her eyes bright as magnesium. “I used my bonus points,” she said, not bothering to hide her pride. “They opened it for me. I wanted you to see it first.”

Emi: 3750 BP - 2000 BP = 1750 BP

Andy felt her fingers tighten around his, warm and insistent. “Let’s go,” she urged, already swinging the door wide.

The world on the other side was… wrong, but in the way of the best dreams. The air was cool and blue, the ground springy, and the first thing Andy saw were the trees. They grew in perfect columns, trunk to sky, each one translucent, like glass pulled into shape by some celestial hand. The trunks weren’t clear, exactly, but filled with light: iridescent veils and ribbons that twisted and shone with every shift in perspective. Their branches curled and wove around each other. The canopy overhead was more shadow than leaf, flickering and alive.

The undergrowth glowed, too—patches of bioluminescent moss, clusters of what looked like oversized bluebells, pools of water studded with lazy, drifting motes. Every step felt deliberate; the geometry of the place was off by a quarter turn, the paths always curling back toward the visitor. Everything was soft-hued, as if painted in watercolor.

Andy tried to take it all in, but Emi was already leading him deeper. Her dress shimmered in the blue light, her hair and arms painted in stripes of gold and indigo by the trees’ weird illumination.

She didn’t speak, not at first. Just led him, fingers interlaced, through glades and clearings. Some had benches, some stone rings, one a swing made from a single perfect arc of glass-wood.

At a bend in the path, Emi stopped. She turned to him, eyes shining. “Is it what you thought?” she whispered.

Andy laughed, the sound echoing in the hollow. “It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen.”

She nodded, pleased, but there was a vulnerability in her smile, too. “I spent all morning here. Not a real forest, but one from a dream.”

They walked on. Emi pointed out details: a fox, carved from the same glass as the trees, perched beside a mushroom cluster; a stretch of silver grass, each blade as fine as hair; a clearing where the moss glowed with a faint pulse, as if it breathed.

Andy watched her more than the scenery. She moved with the alert, gentle purpose of someone showing you their childhood home, eager for you to love it but terrified you might not.

They found a shallow pool at the heart of the woods. The water was still, and reflected an alien sky—no clouds, but thousands of pinpoint stars, some in unfamiliar constellations.

Emi sat on the rim of the pool, kicking off her shoes, then pressed her toes into the water. It didn’t ripple; instead, light spread in concentric rings, colors blooming out from each contact.

Andy joined her, crouching beside the pool. He dipped a finger in. The coolness was real, but the colors weren’t—they trailed and split, refracting up the side of his hand.

Emi drew her knees up, hugging them, her face serious now. “I wanted to show you this because…” She hesitated. “Because it’s hard for me to say things with words. But when I dream, I can say anything. And in the dream, you’re always here, too.”

Andy watched her, the confession making the air in his lungs feel electric.

She met his gaze, not quite defiant but close. “I think sometimes the only way I can be honest is if I make it up first. In here, it doesn’t matter if I’m shy or awkward, or if I say something dumb. It’s all just part of the story.”

He thought of her in the garden, painting their memories into color and shape. He thought of her at the table, folding origami birds in silence. And he understood: for Emi, showing was safer than telling.

He touched her hand, gently. “You can always show me. Even if it’s weird.”

She smiled, relieved. “Thank you.”

They sat together a long time, watching the pool. The forest changed around them—shadows bending, light moving, the trees’ inner glow rising and falling in rhythm. Emi explained every oddity, every motif, like a docent in a museum of her own soul. She showed him the swing (her favorite), the carved fox (it reminded her of her grandmother), the spiral grass (because, she said, it looked soft enough to sleep in). She even dared him to jump from the big stone in the center of a clearing, and laughed when he slipped on landing and ended up sprawled in the moss.

At one point, Emi stopped walking. She looked up at him, cheeks glowing in the blue dusk.

“I want you to know,” she said, voice trembling a little, “that sharing this place is sharing me. Letting you see my dreams made real is as intimate as anything else I could give you.”

Andy swallowed. He knew the truth of it—knew it in the hush, in the glow, in the way Emi’s hand never left his.

He squeezed her hand in return, not needing to say anything.

As night fell over the Forest of Beginnings, they found their way back to the portal, the blue bottle emptied of whatever potion had made the place possible.

They stepped through together, Emi still barefoot, the ghost of her laughter trailing behind. The door closed on the forest, but the dream lingered—in Andy’s mind, and, he hoped, in hers.

He wondered, as they walked side by side, what it meant to be trusted with someone’s imaginary world. And he decided it was the closest thing to love he could imagine, and maybe the bravest.